


In This Moment

by Nodusormu



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Dancing, First Kiss, Fluff, JK i love them, M/M, i hate these idiots so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nodusormu/pseuds/Nodusormu
Summary: A little reimagining of the twinkle, twinkle little star scene (page 259)





	In This Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swansaloft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swansaloft/gifts).



> I've never written anything in present first person before, so I do apologize if I've goofed up anywhere (no beta).
> 
> Art and music in the foot notes!

**\- BAZ -**

Simon Snow is sitting cross legged on my bed and facing me when he takes my hand. I don’t pull back for several reasons; one of which I don't want to look scared. But to be perfectly honest his hand is warm and I’ll take this experiment as an excuse just to hold onto some fleeting part of him. (It’s better than grabbing at his fists when they’re swinging at my face, anyway.)

“Hit me. Or charge me. Whatever it is you did before.”

He nods and relaxes his face, eyes half lidded and idly licking at his bottom lip. _Crowley_. Did he look like that earlier? That should absolutely be illegal.

Then I feel his magic. It pours out of his very skin and runs up my arm, like a static charge and sends a ripple of gooseflesh up the back of neck into my scalp.

I squirm from the sensation but don’t pull away.

“You okay?” he asks in a soft voice, looking up at me. His fingers twitch in my hand but I keep hold of them.

“I’m fine. What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “Opening up, I guess?”

Whatever he’s doing, I’m getting used to it. The static hums and sinks into me and catches fire in my gut. Within in moments it’s so warm and blazing like a bonfire; or one of those funeral pyres I used to threaten him with during our second year.

I wasn’t sure what tapping into his magic was going to feel like. I didn't think it would be so simply. I know what to do with fire.

“Still okay?” he asks.

“Grand.” I say that just a tad too enthusiastically and with grin.

“What? What does that mean?” The look of confusion that briefly flickers over his freckled face turns to something eager as he squeezes my hand. “Does that mean you could use it?”

I laugh. Loudly. Stupidly. Drunkenly. “Snow, I think I could cast a sonnet right now.”

“Show me,” he says and lightly shakes my hand as if that might make me cast faster.

I’m so full of power. The bonfire is roaring inside me and I can taste smoke. Like it’s part of me, like it’s a familiar flame I’ve called upon hundreds of times before. I wonder briefly if this what it feels like to be Simon Snow. So full of fire and yet feeling so very inflammable. Because I feel like I could walk backwards through hell right now.

I fix him with my gaze, taking in the freckles and moles that litter his face. They've always reminded me of constellations. 

Inhaling slowly, I enjoy the taste of smoke on my tongue when I speak: _**"Twinkle, twinkle little star!"**_

Our room fades away. It’s dark for just a moment. Then everything around us is glowing so softly because the stars come out.

_**"Up above the world so high!"** _

Then our bed is gone, both of us no longer sitting on it. I feel weightless. We’re hanging there suspended in nothingness and among the stars that I've memorised, all mirrored from Simon Snow’s features.

An orb of light no bigger than a firefly drifts towards us and we both watch it. The little star touches my arm, and though it doesn’t hurt, I squeeze Simon’s hand and grab for the other one. That causes more of his magic to rush into me, the pyre rising higher into my chest and the smoke billowing enough to make me dizzy.

“Merlin and Morgana,” he breathes. “Are we in space?”

“I don’t know,” I say. I’m a bit dumb struck, but I am breathing. (If a bit quickly now.)

Simon is looking around with his mouth hanging half open. “Is that even a spell?”

“I don’t know.”

I didn't think it really was a spell. It was the first thing that came to me when he looked at me. Simon lets out the smallest of gasps as a tiny star floats between us and brushes his nose. The glow of it makes his already bright blue eyes shine brighter.

I fight an urge to giggle and inhale slowly. I’m openly staring at him now and he doesn’t notice with more stars clustering around us. His head tilts upwards and my gaze follows and we marvel at a small cluster of galaxies that drift past above us.

“Are you holding back at all?” I ask him.

We lock eyes and it causes me to giggle. Some of the firefly stars are gathering around his head now, giving him the most beautiful crown that compliments his very being.

“Not consciously,” Snow says. “Is it too much?”

“No. It’s like we completed a circuit,” I say, gripping both his hands as if he might suddenly break the link.

I begin to think we possibly _could_ be in space, or simulated space. It's dawned on me we’re hanging in midair now, legs dangling and knees touching while wading in this conjured starfield. 

Our room feels so far away. And I never want to go back. _I’m in space with Simon fucking Snow,_ I think with a grin broadening my face. I feel absolutely sloshed right now.

“Are you okay?” he asks giving a tug on my hands, pulling me closer so we nearly crash into one another. “Do you want me to pull back?”

I giggle again. Loudly. Stupidly.

Definitely drunk. 

“Shit, Snow. Stop talking. This is embarrassing.”

I’m so drunk on Simon Snow and he’s pulled me so close our foreheads aren't even centimeters apart now. His curls are tickling my forehead and one of his feet keeps brushing my ankles. 

I think about kissing him. Here and now. I think about how romantic it is, how romantic it _would_ be. It aches just beyond the pyre and smoke that keeps pinging in my chest. The longer we touch the more he’s giving me, the fuller I feel in magic and my own sad sorry excuse of a heart.

If I kissed him, I could probably cast any spell. I bet anything I say would just become a spell after having his lips on mine. And while that terrifies me, it thrills me just as much. Especially with his eyes on me like they are now.

“Do you want me to pull back?” he asks again.

Briefly I think he’s worried about the fact our foreheads bump. But then he tugs my hands and I instinctively squeeze them. That just draws him closer until his freckles and moles and deep blue eyes are all I can see. 

It feels like I’m dreaming.

“No. I want to look at the stars.” 

But I don’t need magic to see the stars when I look at Simon Snow. The stars are written in the splashes of freckles and moles on his face. On his neck. On his arms. On his hands. 

Something wells up in my chest, that familiar longing and craving. I can’t help it, not when it comes to Simon Snow.

“Don’t pull back, okay?”

He nods.

I adjust our hands. I put his left hand on my shoulder and take his waist with my right, pulling him flush against me.

 

**\- SIMON -**

_**”Maestro, if you please.”**_ Baz calls, and the magic comes so easily for him with my tap left open. (It comes easy, regardless.) I don’t know where the music is coming from. I don’t care. It sounds like Pure Imagination.

My face grows hot and the stars move closer, lighting a wide circle around around our feet. There’s a flat, solid place there for us to stand. But we don’t stay standing for long. Soon we’re dancing. Not anything complicated, just swaying in place. It’s awkward at first and I mutter an apology as I try to follow Baz when he starts to lead past swaying and into a slow waltz. I can do it, just not quickly.

 

**\- BAZ -**

The music isn’t fast and neither are my steps. I don’t even care when he steps on my foot or we stumble a few times. I just lead him around in small circles while the song plays. It isn’t until the song begins to fade that I dare spinning him out and then pull him back and dip low with my arm securely around the small of his back.

I’m breathing faster now. And I don’t pull him back up because I can’t stop staring at him. I don’t want to.

And he’s _watching_ me watch _him_. And I don’t care.

 

**\- SIMON -**

We're so close I can smell his toothpaste and feel him breathing. It's coming out in warm pants and his usually stormy grey eyes are just about glowing from the stars that have framed his features.

Baz is absolutely drunk on the tap I've opened for him. I feel light headed. Hell, maybe _I’m_ a little drunk. I must be to think he looks… good. Too good. (Has he always looked this good?) (I don't want to answer that.)

The look he’s giving me doesn’t even remotely say he wants to kill me in this moment.

And then his eyes dart down. Down to my mouth.

He looks like he wants to kiss me. Bloody hell, he just might kiss me.

I bite my lower lip nervously as we hang there suspended in the dip. He notices that. He's staring at it, the lip I'm biting. We bump foreheads.

And then I react without thinking.

 

**\- BAZ -**

I'm looking at his mouth and he’s bites his lower lip. Bloody Illegal.

I think about kissing him again.

But then he kisses _me_.

 

**\- SIMON -**

_I kiss him._

 

**\- BAZ -**

My eyes go wide when Simon Snow closes his. 

My eyebrows shoot up when his mouth opens and I can feel his tongue, wet and dangerously warm, slide hesitantly along my dumbfounded and half open mouth.

It takes me a moment but I part my lips and then I taste nothing but _him_. 

_Aleister Crowley_. I'm starved. Simon _fucking_ Snow tastes even better than I imagined. So I take all he offers and more.

 

**\- SIMON -**

It should be weird how easy this is. Shouldn't it?

It isn't, though. Not really. The weirdest part is that we're floating again. My stomach is tight and gooseflesh runs up my arms while my head spins.

I'm kissing my sworn enemy. But I don't care. Because I like it.

Merlin’s beard.

I like _him_.

 

**\- BAZ -**

 

Simon Snow is kissing me. And I'm kissing him back.

The heat and smoke in my chest expands and it's suddenly all too much. It feels so real, too real. This is the part where it ends in flames, isn’t it?

 

**\- SIMON -**

I'm in the middle of lifting my chin to get a better angle so my tongue can reach the roof of his mouth easier when he isn’t there anymore. Baz is staring at me wide eyed and the tiny orbs of light waver at being disturbed by his sudden movement. He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

And I’m grinning stupidly now. “Use your words, Baz,” I tease him. 

My hands are trembling, or is he trembling? I can’t tell which one of us is more nervous.

 

**\- BAZ -**

“I-I’m sorry.” I blurt out.

_Shouldn’t have said that, you fucking tit_ , calls a voice in the back of my head.

I haven’t hunted tonight but I can feel embarrassment creeping up my neck regardless if the color doesn’t rise.

 

**\- SIMON -**

He’s.. sorry? Why? 

I frown as a rock full of dread forms in my stomach.

“You didn’t do anything to be sorry for,” I whisper, my gaze falling to his lips and then to his chest.

It seems the moment has past, hasn't it?

I pull back my magic but I can’t let him go. Once I do I’ll wake up, won’t I? This has to be a dream.

 

**\- BAZ -**

The pyre inside me wanes, the flames lowering and I’m breathing so slowly.

We’re back in our room once again, this time standing in the space between our beds. There’s no more firefly stars here to crown Simon’s beautiful face. Light pools around us on the floor from the half open window.

“Simon, I--” But words fail me. He looks.. hurt.

_I did that_ , a tiny voice creeps into the front of my mind.

 

**\- SIMON -**

He called me _Simon_. 

Why does that make the rock in my stomach disappear? Why does that make _me_ want to disappear?

My face is hot and I can’t move. I’ve made a mistake, haven’t I? I misread everything. I thought it all made perfect sense, though. Baz is in the foot notes of every list I’ve ever made since I was 11, and now I know why. Merlin, I’ve been thick, haven’t I?

But why does that make me want to cry? Why won’t he say anything?

 

**\- BAZ -**

Crowley, he looks like he might cry. 

_I did that_ , repeats the voice in my head.

_So fix it, you stupid git!_ Another voice shouts louder at me.

I squeeze the hand still holding mine and lean forward until our forehead meet. I touch his nose with my own and close my eyes.

 

**\- SIMON -**

I’m holding my breath, I can’t help it. I’m scared to look at him so I keep my eyes on his chest, but then he’s the only thing in my vision.

 

**\- BAZ -**

“Kiss me again, Simon,” I breathe so very quietly in what little space there is between us. “Please?”

And he does. _Gently_.

The hand on my shoulder moves to my neck, rubbing a circle just under my ear with his thumb. 

I melt.

He does that thing with his chin again and I oblige him. Because Merlin’s beard I’ve wanted this since I was 15. I've wanted _him_ since I was 15.

Why did I ever pull back before? I’m such a fool.

 

**\- SIMON -**

I’m kissing Baz and can’t help wrapping my arms around his neck so I can kiss him deeper. He’s taken all the air from my lungs and I’d gladly suffocate.

We reign ourselves in after several heated moments, sharing breaths with stupid grins.

 

**\- BAZ -**

Breathless and smiling like some numpty, I bury a hand into the bronze curls I dream about nightly and hold onto him long after we’ve stopped to breathe. It’s hard to let him go. I don’t want to wake up from this lucid dream.

I start swaying us slowly once again. There’s no need for magic now, though. Because what I feel in this moment here with Simon Snow _is_ magic.

 

**\- END -**

**Author's Note:**

> For Wren (swansaloft) for introducing me to Fangirl and Carry On and letting me spam text her about it nonstop. 
> 
> I originally drew [this piece](https://nodusormu.tumblr.com/post/184485371100) and wanted to write a little something to go with it. [Link](https://open.spotify.com/track/4uf3HqvvHjqEpQq71qZXvL) to the version of Pure Imagination.


End file.
